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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27602678">Dinner with Uncle Charlie</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johncowdrey/pseuds/Johncowdrey'>Johncowdrey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Endeavour (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:14:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27602678</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johncowdrey/pseuds/Johncowdrey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A short story set in Joan Thursdays parallel/alternative universe, and based on the classic scene from Endeaour series 5<br/>episode 2.<br/>No Mr Bright, but Morse, Carole and Joan are there.My Uncle Charlie is a bit more of a pain than the wonderful T.v. character of<br/>Phil Daniels<br/>There is a slight twist at the end.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Endeavour Morse/Joan Thursday, Joan Thursday/Other(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dinner with Uncle Charlie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Always wondered why this marvellous scene has not been re-created on AO3( well not to my knowledge)<br/>So here is my version.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dinner with Uncle Charlie:<br/>
Set in February 1968<br/>
Prologue;<br/>
In case you haven’t read Joan’s back! Morse, Joan and Carole are sharing<br/>
a flat. Morse and Carole are dating, and Joan is in love with a doctor called<br/>
Jonathon, who works at a big London Hospital.<br/>
Joan has got a good job as an Assistant Manageress at The Randolph<br/>
Hotel, the poshest in Oxford.<br/>
Much to Joan’s surprise and delight, Morse and Carole’s New Year’s Eve<br/>
shenanigans turned out to be more than the one-night stand that Morse,<br/>
and possibly Carole usually favoured, and so it was no surprise that when<br/>
Uncle Charlie and Auntie Pauline paid a surprise visit to Joan’s parents,<br/>
meeting their daughter’s latest Beau was high on their list of priorities.<br/>
“You’re not going Morse, are you? He’s awful” Joan says incredulously<br/>
while reading the small white invitation card that arrived by post that very<br/>
morning for Morse.<br/>
It reads:<br/>
Mr and Mrs Charles Thursday, and their daughter Carole, would like to<br/>
request the company of Mr E. Morse for dinner. (Time and place to be<br/>
decided)<br/>
R.S.V.P.<br/>
“Why not? Your dad said he was a bit of a rough diamond, but his heart is<br/>
in the right place.”<br/>
“Well, he would do, wouldn’t he; dad lost one of his brothers during the war,<br/>
and Charlie being the youngest, he can do no wrong in dad’s eyes.<br/>
Personally, I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.”<br/>
“What about Pauline, what’s she like?”<br/>
“She’s Charlie’s second wife, a good deal younger than him, a bit of a man-<br/>
eater according to Carole. While they’re here Morse, I’m giving them a wide<br/>
berth, I can tell you that for nothing!”<br/>
That night Joan had a phone call from her dad about the “get together”<br/>
Uncle Charlie was organising.<br/>
“They’re not here very often Joan, I really think you and Jonathon should<br/>
make the effort; it might be the last time you get to see them before your<br/>
wedding.”<br/>
“Wedding? We’re not even engaged yet, Dad.”<br/>
“Well, from what Morse says it won’t be long before you’re both choosing<br/>
rings, and your Mum and Auntie Renee have to buy new hats, for the big<br/>
day.”<br/>
“Perhaps Morse should learn to keep his mouth shut, and anyway he hasn’t<br/>
asked me yet” Joan says coyly with a smile on her face.<br/>
“Look dad the fact is we’re both working next Saturday night, otherwise<br/>
we’d both love to come” Joan has her tongue firmly in her cheek.<br/>
With that Fred gives up and they both say goodnight.<br/>
The following Saturday, Joan had to go in to work at 5 o’clock, to cover<br/>
staff absences caused by the ‘flu, and Jonathon was in Guy’s Hospital<br/>
doing his late shift. It was 7.30 p.m., and Morse and Carole we’re looking<br/>
out of the upstairs window, waiting for Uncle Charlie, and his party to show<br/>
up.<br/>
Morse looked very handsome in a brand-new Tuxedo, and his hair freshly<br/>
cut and styled after an afternoon visit to the barbers, and although he never<br/>
said anything he felt very proud of how lovely his young girlfriend looked.<br/>
As he was gazing at Carole his attention was grabbed by a monstrous<br/>
black leviathan of a car, (that made the MK 1 Jaguar he drove, look like a<br/>
Bubble car) which screeched to a halt outside the flat. A rather small man<br/>
with brilliantined thinning hair and a loud suit jumped out and rang the<br/>
doorbell.<br/>
“That’s them” said Carole resignedly.<br/>
They trooped downstairs, and opened the front door to a grinning Uncle<br/>
Charlie who after looking Morse up and down said<br/>
“No one told me we had to bring our own waiter, Pauline.”<br/>
Charlie’s guffaws were immediately joined by Pauline’s braying laugh from<br/>
the back of the car.<br/>
On the way to the restaurant Charlie was being his usual obnoxious self,<br/>
without even realising it. He made it his mission to try to find out Morse’s<br/>
given name, particularly when he found out that even his daughter didn’t<br/>
know it. It took Fred’s intervention to shut him up.<br/>
“You don’t mind me asking, do you Morse? After all everyone will know,<br/>
when you and our Carole are standing in front of the altar, which can’t<br/>
come soon enough for you, can it Carole?”<br/>
“Dad please, you’re embarrassing me now,”<br/>
And so it went on, till they arrived at their destination.<br/>
At the restaurant Charlie further disgraced himself by ostentatiously stuffing<br/>
a ten-shilling note into the top pocket of the Head Waiter’s dinner jacket<br/>
saying<br/>
“You look after us John, and I’ll look after you”, which<br/>
impressed his wife Pauline, but made everyone else cringe with<br/>
embarrassment. Handing back the note the Head waiter said,<br/>
“Unnecessary sir, I always look after our guests......regardless.”<br/>
Charlie was obviously put out by this slight, but for once he kept his<br/>
thoughts to himself.<br/>
The party were shown to table no. 13, and Uncle Charlie of course<br/>
complained about its location to anyone who would listen.<br/>
Joan was not having a great night; her silver service skills were a bit rusty<br/>
to say the least, but she had been managing, and her waiting was<br/>
improving as the service progressed.<br/>
As she was on her way to table 13, with 6 menus, she was horrified to see<br/>
who the diners were. Five people waiting patiently, except Charlie who was<br/>
loudly letting his views be known about how bad the service was, and how<br/>
he was used to better.<br/>
Joan hoped against hope that he wouldn’t feel the need to comment about<br/>
her, while knowing that he would not be able to resist it.<br/>
“Well, well, you’ve been telling us porkpies Win, you’re Joan is a waitress, a<br/>
bit of a comedown from an Assistant Manageress.”<br/>
Win is getting a bit flustered, as Joan tries to explain, and Carole is close to<br/>
tears at her father’s boorish behaviour.<br/>
Joan automatically looks around for Morse to support her, as she often<br/>
does, when she notices him whispering to the head waiter, and discreetly<br/>
passing him a couple of pound notes.<br/>
When Joan returns with the drinks, she starts to take their orders from the<br/>
menu.<br/>
Charlie predictably orders a prawn cocktail, rump steak, peas and chips,<br/>
with a bottle of H.P. sauce, and a black forest gateau to finish (that’s what<br/>
Charlie always orders)<br/>
Just as Joan was finishing taking everybody’s order , the<br/>
Head waiter walks over, and addresses everybody at the table.<br/>
“Excuse me Ladies and Gentleman, but I have a message for Detective<br/>
Sergeant Morse from Detective Sergeant Strange at Cowley police station.<br/>
Reading from a piece of paper he goes on,<br/>
“Your alarm has been activated; we don’t believe there is an intruder<br/>
present, but a constable is in attendance, and the device needs to be<br/>
turned off, could you please attend to it a.s.a.p.”<br/>
Morse makes his apologies, but Carole insists on going back with her<br/>
boyfriend. Joan is really worried for her friend’s safety, and it is not until<br/>
Morse gives her a big smile and a wink that she realises what he has done.<br/>
On the way home Morse says to Carole,<br/>
“If I may say so, that was a brilliant idea of yours.”<br/>
“I’m not just a pretty face Morse.”<br/>
Later Morse stops the taxi to buy a fish and chip supper, and afterwards<br/>
they enjoy an early night together.<br/>
THE END</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Originally meant to be part of Joan's back, but I thought it was good enough to stand alone,<br/>perhaps I made a mistake, please let me know.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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